Rating

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Review: The Summer He Came Home by Juliana Stone

Summary:

Sometimes the best place to find love is right back where you started...

Falling asleep in a different bed every night has made it easy for Cain Black to forget his past. It's been ten years since he packed his guitar and left Crystal Lake to chase his dreams. Now tragedy has forced him home again. And though Cain relishes the freedom of the road, one stolen moment with Maggie O'Rourke makes him wonder if he's missing out on something bigger than fame.

For Maggie--single mother and newly settled in Crystal Lake--love is a luxury she just can't afford. Sure, she appreciates the tall, dark and handsome looks of prodigal son Cain Black. But how long can she expect the notorious hellion to stay?

The last thing either of them wants is something complicated. But sometimes love has its own plans.

My Review:

Yet again, I have been slow going in my reading. But this time, it's not because of the haphazardness of my life at this time, I just had trouble getting into this book. I had trouble with the heroine and that kind of bled over into the rest of the book.

Maggie presented some trouble for me. I just did not like her at all. She's the type of person that I would actively avoid talking to, if I knew her. I tried to like her, in the interest of finishing this book, but I barely managed not hating her. One of the biggest reasons I did not like her was the fact that she held every little bit of Cain's past against him every chance she got. Yes, he has a bit of a spotty reputation but it was obvious that he was hopelessly devoted to her and her son so she really needed to get off her high and judgy horse for a second. And, furthermore, she had all these secrets that she would not tell Cain but she felt it necessary to Google him (on his own computer!!). She probably would have freaked out if he had gone behind her back to find out about her past. In other words, this woman and I just did not gel. But I did love Cain. He was strong and kind and his connection with Michael was sweet and adorable. I never felt as if he got enough credit for being a good guy from anyone in that town or Maggie. His past was constantly brought up. It made all the people in Crystal Lake seem close-minded.

I did like the book well enough. It'll probably not go on my favorites list but I loved Cain and Michael. Maggie did present quite a bit of trouble for me. I just couldn't make a connection with her and, to be quite honest, I didn't want to. And I think as a result of my dislike of Maggie, the chemistry between Maggie and Cain fell short for me as well. I need to like both to buy into the connection. I also thought that the conflict at the end was a bit rushed. The majority of the book was calm and placid but the ex-husband appears at the end like magic to raise hell. It seemed like it was thrown in as an afterthought.

As you can probably tell, this one did not quite work for me. I will probably pick up the next book in this series but this one was a bit of a miss.